Gospel Purpose

Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order

a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us,

just as those who from the beginning

were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered to us,

it seemed good to me also,

having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,

to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus,

that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

Luke 1:1-4

I didn't realize until I typed out the words just how much information could be gleaned from this seemingly inconsequential introduction to the Gospel of Luke, but considering the remarkable statements he makes, this might be a good time to consider the writing of the four gospels themselves.

Luke was Greek, a physician and native of Antioch, and a convert to Christianity who joined the Apostle Paul's ministry team in about 50 AD in Troas. When Paul was forced to leave Philippi a few weeks later, he left Luke to oversee the fledgling congregation there, and the two were not reunited until 58 AD when Paul was on his way back to Jerusalem following a three-year ministry at Ephesus. It is likely that Luke researched his gospel while Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea from 58 to 60 AD, the only time period during which Luke would have access to Mary the mother of Jesus and other leaders of Judean Christianity who would have been rich sources of information for the historian. Luke was the first of a two-volume account concerning Christ and the origins of Christianity, the second being Acts which was apparently completed about 62 AD before Paul's release from his Roman imprisonment. And he wrote his two volumes in attempt to present the gospel to the very wide audience of the Greco-Roman world.

But Luke's own testimony is that he was neither the first, nor the second person to undertake writing an account of the life of Christ. Writing around 60 AD, he clearly states that "many" had already undertaken the task of writing narratives about the life of Christ, though we obviously don't have that "many" extant today. What we have are Luke and three others--Matthew, Mark and John. John was written late in the First Century specifically to combat the rise of gnosticism in the Church and present Jesus as God in the Flesh, something the gnostics denied; so Luke may have been referring to Matthew and Mark as among the "many" who had already written about Jesus.

The Early Church Father's believed Matthew to be the first of the four gospels, thus its placement in canon as the premier New Testament book. It is said that he first compiled the sayings and teachings of Jesus, then wrote his gospel originally in Aramaic, the language of the Jews. Matthew was a Jew writing to a Jewish audience about their Jewish Messiah, so he continually ties the story of Jesus back to the Old Testament and their Israeli heritage, especially connecting him to the promises and prophecies from God. This was likely in the 40s, and later the gospel was translated into Greek.

Mark was a disciple of Peter, and it was the testimony of the Early Church that he wrote his gospel using as source material narratives already in existence and the preaching of the Apostle Peter while they were in Rome before Peter's arrest and subsequent execution in 66 AD. He told his version of Christ's story with a distinctive Roman flair that emphasized immediacy and brevity, thus his is the shortest of all the gospels. Peter had traveled through Asia Minor in the mid-50s, and had likely come to Rome following that itineration. If he was one of Luke's sources, his gospel would have probably been available by 60 AD when Paul and Luke reached Rome.

Whoever Luke was referring to, be it Matthew and Mark or others whose works are now lost, he said they had taken in hand to set in order a narrative of the things which had been fulfilled through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Those who wrote about Jesus were just like those who had been eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, of which Luke was not one. There have been suggestions that Luke was among the 70 disciples called and commissioned during the later months of Jesus' ministry to go into all the villages he intended to visit and prepare them for his arrival, but Luke himself says he was not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. Rather, Luke says the word had been declared to him by those who had been eyewitnesses.

Luke was writing his gospel from the perspective of one who had investigated the origins of Christianity and felt well qualified to write a biographical account of Christ's life. His is the most strictly historical and chronological of the gospels, what one might expect from the meticulous pen of a physician, and he himself said it was his goal to present an orderly account. His audience is the Gentile world, but it is directed as a correspondence or dedicated as a work to one Theophilus, whose name meant Lover of God, in hopes that this account would give its reader certainty of the facts which he had formerly been told about Jesus Christ.

That fourth verse really tells us why each of the gospels exist, and we also live--so that we can tell others with clarity of understanding and certainty of fact that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the Man sent from God to save the world.